Festival of Frost

by C. H. Williams

  Reed only shook her head in dismay. “I gave you the riddle. The answers, laid out plain.”

  First, the pebbles, white as snow, round and smooth and brought from below.

  Second, the berries, yellow as day, sweet and juicy and out of the way.

  Third, the leaves as green as spring, winter’s bounty to me you’ll bring.

  And when you gather your sacrifice three, only then, they’ll leave you be.

  “Those weren’t answers,” Lilah snapped. “That was poetry—and bad poetry, at that! Any idiot can rhyme!”

  “Li.” Juli’s hand was on her sister’s arm, holding her back with a ginger touch. She remembered still her sister’s burn, it seemed, did not wish to repeat what she’d found in a moment of panic and anger. “We’ve been trying to find you,” Juli said softly, watching Reed.

  Reed’s smile faltered, straightening up. “And I, you. These hills—they’re changeable. Liable to swallow up braver travelers than you.”

  “Help us,” Grayson said softly. His eyes looked close to tears as he watched the vora. “Please.”

  “I am bound by vow,” Reed whispered. “I cannot.”

  Lilah threw her hands in the air, furious. “Then why—”

  “Hush,” Reed murmured, taking a step forward. “I cannot help you. Already, you outrun an enemy that should’ve torn you apart. You flee between water and land, camping where they’re weak. But the dark days are coming. Already, the sun is beginning to fade, and soon, there will be no rest. And so, I will tell you a story.”

  “This is hardly the time—”

  “A story,” Reed echoed. “Now, listen.”

  Chapter 14

  JULI

  "It is believed,” Reed said quietly, “that once, there was a storm. “So violent and so wretched was it that it tore the land away and turned the world upside down. Rocks rained from the sky, and air was beneath their feet. The gods had no choice, then, but to seek shelter on the mountain top. But there, they found solace unlike the peace they’d known below—” She coughed, though, words cut off.

  “Go on,” Juli whispered, watching Reed.

  “They found solace—” She was cut off again, choking, shaking her head. “I can’t,” she wheezed, fingers on her chest.

  Grayson was reaching for his waterskin, but it was no use.

  Reed was clawing at her neck, now, lips turning blue. “I’m sorry. I tried, I…”

  But whatever she was, they would not know.

  The blue tinge seeped across her skin, swallowing her words, a sickening smoke beginning to curl out of her lips in the place of the answer she’d promised.

  And in a gentle puff, she turned to ash.

  “No!” Grayson’s anguish echoed off the rocks, and Juli swore, turning away.

  If Reed had vowed not to help them, if her words were bound by magic, then the story must’ve had the answers.

  Bess would’ve known the story.

  That much, Juli was sure of.

  “Maybe,” she said softly, glancing back between Grayson and Lilah, “we should go back to the Basin.”

  It wasn’t such a crazy idea.

  They had Lilah, and her fire, and the Basin had Bess, with her stories. They could go home. Figure out what they needed to fetch, unravel the mystery with a little bit of…comfort?

  That was banking on a lot, though, and Grayson seemed to know it, watching her.

  Banking on the Capital, answering their father’s demand for food.

  Banking on the fact they weren’t already dead, all of them, at the hands of the ice spiders.

  If they’d somehow made it, if they’d managed to ration the grains enough, to stretch the food to try and last through winter, it was unlikely they’d be terribly kind to the deserters.

  But there was Fin.

  He hadn’t known, when she left.

  Hadn’t known she carried their child.

  Hell. She hadn’t known.

  He couldn’t very well turn her away then, could he?

  In her heart, she knew the answer.

  Finley hadn’t believed her, when she’d told him why she wanted to leave.

  It was unlikely he’d believe her, when she told him why she wanted to return.

  “Go back to the Basin,” Gray echoed, taking a step towards her. “Jules, why? You heard what Reed was trying to tell us—we at least have to keep making for the mountains. After her warning, we can hardly afford to turn back.” There was guilt in his eyes as he said it.

  Like he thought he was the one making her ill.

  Like it was such a bad thing, that she was losing her breakfast.

  It would pass, soon.

  And then he’d see. Then he’d stop feeling so bad.

  “She thinks Bess might know the rest of the story,” Lilah said softly.

  Grayson shook his head, sighing. “I know Bess’s stories. Spent my life listening to them. That one’s vora, through-and-through.”

  “Fine.” Juli pushed her hair out of her face, trying to think. “Fine, so it was a stupid idea—”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “Give it a rest, Gray,” she snipped. “Rocks rained from the sky, pebbles from below…” Her eyes skirted the ground before drifting up to the peaks in the distance.

  The mountains.

  It felt like such an insane, impossible decision.

  And what was the alternative.

  To stay.

  To watch Lilah, exhausting herself each night, fighting back the ice spiders? She was burning herself out.

  The last couple nights had been bad, too. Lilah had just laid there, after the spiders burned, trembling, eyes glued to the fire, like to lose sight of it was to lose herself.

  Not that Grayson had been much better.

  He’d tried, at first, with the bow and arrow. Night after night.

  Eventually, though, he’d given up.

  Resigned himself to what he thought must’ve been his own uselessness.

  Juli had tried to fight the hopelessness, in her own way.

  Tried to imagine the future.

  Maybe it’d be in the Basin, and maybe not. It wouldn’t be alone, though, that much she knew. That was what made it so much less terrifying.

  They’d face monsters and demons, they’d run and they’d fight, and they would do it together. Always together. That was their strength—the love they held for each other.

  “So, we’re really going there,” Juli said softly, wrapping her arm around Grayson’s waist, nodding to the mountains.

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  “We always have a choice,” Lilah shrugged, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  Grayson said nothing as they stared at the mountains looming ahead.

  If the alternative was an unending fight, a dying settlement…it didn’t feel like much of a choice. Not really.

  Chapter 15

  GRAYSON

  The funny thing about mountains was that they looked a lot closer than they actually were.

  Winter settled down around them, resentful and cold, clinging to the most bitter weather it seemed to muster.

  Reed hadn’t been wrong about the days growing dark, and it couldn’t have been far past noon when the wind and the dark clouds circling above had forced the three of them to shelter, retreating into a mercifully empty crevasse.

  Lilah had struck a small fire at the back of the cave, coaxing it from nothing more than moss with her fingertips.

  Her skills as a fire-render had grown in the months of running, honed in an almost nightly battle—a battle that had at last begun to wane the last few nights, thank the gods.

  “I rather like this,” Juli murmured, leaning back against the wall of the cave, surveying their home for the night. “By far the nicest accommodations we’ve seen in a while.”

  Lilah cracked a smile at that one.

  The fire had scorched the ice spiders—and whatever cynicism that bound her to displea
sure. To be sure, Li was still quick to offer condescension. But anymore, it felt tempered in a sort of wisdom Grayson hadn’t known.

  Grayson ran his fingers through his beard, stretched out on the bedroll by the fire.

  Jules wasn’t wrong.

  It was tempting to stay here, at least for a day or so. Rest. Recover.

  It went in bouts like that. Fight, and fight hard for days, weeks, even. And then nothing. A few moments to recuperate.

  “Be back,” Lilah muttered, giving Juli’s arm a squeeze before turning for the mouth of the cave.

  She left her brother and sister in quiet, the fire flickering down slightly at its creator’s departure.

  Grayson pushed himself up, scooting over next to Juli. “I figure, another week, we’re at the summit,” he said, eyes on the flurries tearing at the sky beyond. “We wait out this storm, rest a bit, and then push to the top.” He glanced back to Juli, looking her up and down. “You’ve been better, lately.”

  “Better,” she echoed, nodding thoughtfully. Then, bringing her gaze back to him, she sighed. “Gray, I…I wasn’t ill. Not properly.”

  “You—”

  She cut him off, giving his hand a squeeze. “Shh.”

  “Jules, what—”

  “Hush.” A faint smile was on her lips, now, as she pulled his hand towards her, moving aside the cloak to rest it gently on her belly. Her bulging belly, he realized, hidden deftly beneath the layers in the cold.

  “Juli,” he breathed, eyes finding hers. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Wanted to make sure,” she shrugged.

  Grayson’s chest tightened as he pulled his hand away. “We…” We what?

  “Hey.” Her golden eyes found his, warning. “Don’t you dare do that. I’m fine. Don’t you dare start coddling me now, alright? Don’t make me regret telling you.”

  There was nothing to do, then, but pull her into a hug. “You need anything, though, you tell me, Jules. Anything.”

  “That was always true, Gray.”

  “Yeah,” he snickered, pulling back, “it—”

  He was cut off, though, by something trembling far beneath the earth, the squealing of stone-on-stone piercing through the air.

  The fire puffed out in a splintering crack of dust and stone, and he was on his feet, dragging Juli right behind him into the storm.

  Whatever they had awoken from inside the cavern, though, cared not for the raging wind and howling snow.

  Stumbling through the blinding onslaught, Grayson watched in horror as the cave collapsed.

  And from the rubble, a beast.

  Terrible.

  A man of rock, rising from within its den, hungry as it arose from years of slumber.

  A Sleeping Stone, like from Bess’s stories.

  Awakened at last.

  “Juli, run!”

  Grayson’s voice on the air only drew the creature on, great bouldered limbs flexing as it stooped, gathering a fistful of rubble, and in a single smooth movement, hurled the debris to where they both stood.

  “No!” It was futile, he knew. Covering her body with his. Throwing himself in front of her. Like it’d do anything, against the weight of stone crashing towards them.

  Eyes squeezed shut, he braced himself for the impact.

  To be crushed.

  Decimated.

  To die, beside his sister, bearing the weight of rubble and the loss of life as he left for the underworld.

  The impact never came.

  “Gray,” Juli whispered, hand on his back.

  He hardly dared to look.

  But above them, the rain of rock had splintered, falling aside in pulverized flakes where he’d thrown his arms out to protect them both.

  He’d moved the earth like it was nothing.

  Like feathers in the wind.

  The Sleeping Stone gave a roar, moving for another round.

  Me.

  That’s me.

  I’m doing this.

  He felt that much. Felt his body straining, felt the cold of earth in his bones, the humming that was running beneath his feet, but more than anything, the unwavering truth.

  In that moment, he was what stood between life and death.

  Catching his breath, he took a step forward, summoning his focus.

  He’d done this as a child.

  Played with pebbles on the beach. Loved to run the sand through his fingers, to feel the dirt between his toes.

  Grayson didn’t give it a second thought, sliding his boots off, letting his feet stand bare upon the snow.

  And the earth reveled, meeting its brother.

  Now what?

  Lilah talked about anger.

  He couldn’t find it, though. Nik—gods, he hadn’t thought about that boy in a while, but even still, there was only heartache.

  Before the heartache, though, there’d been love.

  And gods, that was the kind of love he hadn’t known before. Wild. All-consuming. It took his waking thoughts, his dreams, and all the space between, and that—that was a powerful thing.

  He let his thoughts drift back to the barn, another lifetime ago.

  How badly he’d loved.

  How he’d wanted, more than anything else in this gods-forsaken world.

  Lifting his hand to the sky, he exhaled.

  His cry of defiance echoed off the mountain as he returned the volley towards the Sleeping Stone.

  Rock rained back and forth, the giant screaming in agony as each onslaught was sent hurling back, chipping away at it, until at last, Grayson sent one last cascade down, shattering the creature in an ear-splitting crash.

  An in its wake, pebbles.

  Pebbles, as white as snow, raining from the sky.

  Chapter 16

  LILAH

  The winter winds snapped around her as Lilah left the safety of the cave.

  It didn’t bother her, though.

  She had her fire.

  But today, more than the fire, she had her grief, too.

  Days like today were just like her mother. A storm. A raging, wretched storm, the kind that you half-wanted to end, half-wanted to stay.

  The sadness waxed and waned.

  It was easy to be angry at Juli, at the woman with healing in her hands, for letting their mother die while she went on living. It was far more difficult, though, to grieve the bitter moments Lilah had shared with her mom. Moments that could never be rewritten. Measured, finite moments of resentment and conflict.

  Juli and Grayson were a picture of a different life. Their parents, but happier. Better.

  So where did that leave her?

  Lilah blew out a breath, eyes drifting to the alcove of pines she’d taken refuge in.

  The wind was nipping at her skin, recoiling at the fire in her blood.

  If it wasn’t for the others, she wouldn’t need the shelter of a cave. She wouldn’t need shelter at all.

  She could revel in the onslaught.

  I am alright.

  Lilah had to force herself to believe the words, standing there alone. Love and solitude could coexist. They would not condemn her for taking her moments.

  Not anymore.

  Not like they had, after their mother had died.

  I am alright.

  This was okay.

  This was permission, to love them from a distance.

  This didn’t have to leave her at odds with her own heart, because it was alright, to love them and be furious that they could relive days Lilah never got.

  And so, Lilah watched the forest, reveling in the winter as her skin burned away the cold.

  Lilah burned the cold away, and once she’d done that, she started on the dead leaves, dried to crisps and once buried beneath the snow that buried all but her. Branches and grasses and bark and trees, they all started to succumb, and she laughed quietly, watching her flame.

  It belonged to her, and her alone.

  Great columns of fire, reaching to the sky, and the spitting and hissi
ng of winter dying was a swell of music to her ears. It was a song of defiance, screaming back all the words she’d wanted to say before her mother died. A song of mourning, regretting that in the barrage, there hadn’t been sweeter words, too, from either mother or daughter. A song of rebellion, because they were both sinners.

  The only difference was that Lilah knew it.

  But their mother had been too happy to play the saint.

  A tremendous crash broke the sound of crackling sap, and the fire faltered out, quelched by the snow as Lilah’s head snapped back to the encampment.

  Lilah froze, straining to hear over the embers of the inferno.

  Juli’s shriek echoed through the woods, though, and Lilah was running, fighting off the onslaught of the storm to find them.

  She’d left them. She’d selfishly left them, defenseless, and the worst part was that she didn’t want to go back.

  She wanted them to be fine, she wanted them safe, but she wasn’t Juli, keeping them close. She’d never asked to be their protector.

  The encampment was decimated.

  Lilah stopped dead in her tracks, breathless, watching as a mountainous stone man rose once more from the place where the cave had been.

  Lumbering and massive, the creature had been wrought from the earth itself, a great grotesquery of granite, and with a roar, it hurled a boulder through the air—and straight for Grayson and Juli.

  Lilah screamed, fire in her fingers.

  But what could the flame do against the rock.

  Grayson thrust his hands forward, grunting as he absorbed the impact of a thousand boulders falling from the sky, and with a push, returned them to the stone man.

  The resultant crash was shattering.

  Grayson had a hand around Juli’s waist, the other held to the sky, shielding them both from the rain of snow white pebbles that burst forth as the stone man exploded.

  A smile had split across his lips as he pulled Juli tight, and Lilah felt an echo of a laugh dancing on her tongue.

  They’d done it.

  They’d found them.

  Their pebbles.

  Juli was pulling away, giving Grayson’s hand an admonishing smack—she must’ve told him, Lilah thought, watching as the last bits of dirt and stone fell to the ground, the last bits of the stone giant.